


Directional

by Alcyone



Category: The Royal Romance (Visual Novel)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-22 09:18:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17057039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alcyone/pseuds/Alcyone
Summary: A story of a compass.





	Directional

****When Drake bought the compass, Liam was madly in love with Riley, Riley was certain to accept his proposal once her name was cleared, and Drake had convinced himself that their happiness would be enough. He had resigned himself to the truth before the coronation, and it had not changed.

Liam and Riley would get the happy ending they deserved.

Then Riley said no.

* * *

 

He found the compass again by accident. Tossed into a drawer still in the box he had found for it. Unwrapped. He had wanted to hand it to Liam himself. Then Liam’s engagement to Madeleine ended—and the one to Riley failed to materialize—before Drake could.

The sentiment behind the gift was still there only it felt stupid now.  _Don’t lose your way._  Great advice for the man whose heart was broken. And what would he even say when Liam asked him the reason for the gift?  _It was supposed to be your engagement present, but that fell through. And then the woman you wanted to marry married someone else. Anyway, congrats?_

All that would be missing was the shovel so he could finish burying himself alive.

It wasn’t as if the reminder were necessary, either. Liam was already taking the steps he needed not to become another Constantine just as Drake knew he would. He may not have been the one born to the crown, but he was the only one who could remain standing under its weight. Constantine would have rather broken before he bent; Leo had been all flash and no fortitude. The way had taken some awful turns, but the crown had come to the person it was meant to.

Liam had settled into the role better than even Drake had expected, and made it his own.

The compass was as superfluous as Drake himself had once felt.

He still took to carrying it with him everywhere.

* * *

 

Which was how, one sunny morning in Valtoria, it came to be in Riley’s hands.

“Isn’t this the compass you bought in New York?”

“Where’d you find that?” Drake made a grab for it, but Riley danced back.

“Uh-uh,” she warned him. “Behave.”

“That’s mine.” Drake tried to grab it again.

Riley smacked his hand.

“It was supposed to be Liam’s,” she said over his pained yelp. “Why didn’t you give it to him?”

Drake scowled at her, nursing his hand. “If you remember, it was supposed to be an engagement gift. It didn’t pan out.”

“Still.” She looked down at the compass. Turning in a half-circle, she followed the motion of the needle. “It was a sweet gift. Liam would have loved it.”

“Yeah, well.”

“And it doesn’t explain why you brought it  _with_  you.”

A heavy weight dropped into his stomach.  _Give her a reason, any reason_ , his mind screamed at him in warning.

“Uh—” he said intelligently.

Riley narrowed her eyes at him.

“Drake,” she began slowly, “have you just…been carrying this around since New York?”

“No,” he said far too quickly.

There was a strange look on Riley’s face, one he liked less by the second. Having learned his lesson, he didn’t try to snatch the compass from her again.

“Look, I brought it with me because I wanted to go hiking while I was here.” He happily landed on the excuse. “So, can I have it back?”

“No.”

Drake’s mouth dropped open. “ _No?_ ”

“No,” she repeated simply. “You never got me an engagement gift. I like this.”

He was still gaping at her.

“What the hell, Brooks? You can’t just take it!”

“My duchy, my rules.”

“You have got to be kidding me.”

This had to the fastest he had ever seen power go to someone’s head. If this was her as a duchess, maybe it was a good thing she declined the opportunity to be queen.

“Give me one good reason why I should give it back.”

“Because it’s mine!”

Riley rolled her eyes. “I said a  _good_  reason.”

“Because it’s stealing.”

She looked even less impressed.

“Two strikes, Drake.”

“All right!”

Were it anyone else, Drake would have called the bluff—or sucker punched him if it were Maxwell. As it was Riley, he crossed his arms in front of him, glaring out the window.

“It’s because it’s Liam’s.”

“Wow.”

His head snapped toward her. A little smile was playing about her lips, her eyes shining.

Drake felt more confused than ever.

“Wow, what?”

“Wow, I just didn’t actually think—” She grinned. “Give me a minute, I have to text Maxwell.”

“Maxwell? Why?”

“He bet me that I’d never get you to tell me you’re in love with Liam.”

Drake spluttered. “I am not— I didn’t— Don’t be—  _Don’t you dare tell Maxwell!_ ”

Riley raised her hands in signal of surrender.

“Okay, okay, I won’t, don’t have an aneurysm!”

“And I am not in love with Liam!” he emphasized.

“Of course not,” she said matter-of-fact. “You’ve just been carrying around a compass you bought for him months ago because it’s his.”

A pregnant pause filled the space between them.

“Yes,” he finally groused.

Riley closed her eyes, inhaling deeply.

“Just out of curiosity,” she said, looking at him again, “are you actually planning on giving this to Liam any time soon?”

“Yes.” He shoved his hands into his pockets. “I just wanted to give it to him when he’s not surrounded by nobles.”

“You know that if you want Liam to  _be_  at a date, you need to  _ask_  him.”

“I’m not asking Liam on a date!”

The denial came out a little shriller than Drake would have liked or planned for. A passing servant stopped in her tracks at the noise. Riley grabbed Drake’s hand and pulled him along with her out of the sitting room. In a different room, she fumbled behind a painting and a section of the wall opened. She unceremoniously shoved Drake through it.

The room behind it was small and furnished. Drake had no time to further examine the interior as Riley was facing him again and poking him in the chest.

“Okay. I’m only going to say this once because you’re my friend and I care about and you are so damn stupid you’ll never figure it out on your own.”

“Hey—”

She cut him off.

“You know how often Liam talks about you? Any time he talked to me about his childhood or whenever he escaped the palace or just—when he talked about the things that make him happy.” Riley raised an eyebrow at him, daring him to challenge her. “He always mentioned you. How you’re the person who knows him best. The one person he knows he can trust. His best friend who’s saved his life and who he still thinks he owes something to.”

Drake was bewildered.

“That was one time, and that was years ago.”

Riley gave him a look.

“Liam does not just count the time with the boat, and you know it.”

Drake had nothing to say to that.

Riley softened.

“Liam loved me, yeah,” she spoke quietly. “But I’m not the person he’s supposed to be with. And while I may not be in love with him, I do love him enough to want him to have a chance at  _real_  happiness…with someone who loves him just as much.”

Putting the compass in Drake’s hand, she wrapped his fingers around it.

“You picked this out, Drake. Maybe it’s time you follow it.”

Uncovering the compass, he looked at its face. The needle pointed away from Riley.

“Obviously it’s pointing there. North is that way.”

For a brief moment, with her glare pinning him against the wall, Drake truly feared for his life.

* * *

 

As much as he tried to push the moment out of mind, he couldn’t. After telling him to “die alone, then,” Riley had marched away. Nor was he about to confide in either Maxwell or Hana. Both had picked up on the mood that weekend in Valtoria, but they gave him his space and Riley, thankfully, hadn’t said a word to either.

He was going to have to buy her a belated engagement present for that.

Truth was, as much as he would have liked to do as Riley said (and he could admit it when she wasn’t around to be smug about it), he was also afraid.

Disregarding what the people would think, he mulled as he lay in his bed torturing himself with what ifs, realistically, say something  _did_  happen. What kind of future could they expect? What kind of  _relationship_? Liam still needed a queen; he would need kids. All Drake could provide was a few bottles of whiskey and an intimate knowledge of the palace’s secrets.

Turning on his side, he threw his arm over his head.

Confessing to Riley had been one of the hardest things he did and he had only known her for a few weeks.

He had spent the better part of his life in love with Liam and the other part telling himself that was where it would end.

He could not fathom looking into Liam’s eyes as he tried to find some kind way of saying nothing could happen. Or worse, that he didn’t feel the same.

* * *

 

But because life had a sense of humor that really loved watching him suffer—and he hadn’t learned from the time with Riley—the choice was taken out of his hands.

He had only been intending to speak with Liam briefly. “Briefly” became an hour, then three. Laughing, Liam picked up his phone and frowned.

“My battery died. Mind if I use yours while I let this charge?”

Drake, in the process of pouring himself another finger of whiskey, tossed a “Go ahead” over his shoulder.

“Is it in your jacket?”

“Yeah— Wait, no!”

He froze when he saw Liam slide his hand into the pocket and withdraw the compass instead.

“This is exquisite.” Liam held the compass up to admire it. “Did you inherit it?”

“No.” Drake’s mouth had gone dry. “I bought it. In New York.”

He could have left it there. Part of him insisted he left it there. But another part—the one that had not stopped turning over Riley’s assertion that Liam for some reason had told the woman he loved that it was Drake who knew him best—proved stronger.

“It was for you.”

Liam looked up in surprise. “For me?”

“Yeah.” Drake could feel his heartbeat against his ribs. He swallowed. “I thought you could use it as a reminder to trust in yourself and not to lose your way.”

“Like when we were kids. This is very thoughtful, Drake. Thank you.”

Liam smiled, touched. Drake saw the question appear first on the other man’s face before he voiced it.

“Did…you actually intend for me to have this?”

Drake could do a lot of things. He couldn’t lie to Liam.

“Not really.” He gave a helpless shrug. “It was going to be an engagement present first. We both know what happened. Then there just didn’t seem to be a good time to give it to you. Then I realized…I didn’t want to.”

A little frown formed between Liam’s eyebrows. “Why?”

“Because the needle was never going to point at me.”

It was the single stupidest thing he had ever said.

He blamed Riley for getting into his head.

And yet Liam wasn’t looking at him as if he were stupid. He was looking at him like…like he was seeing Drake anew. Like this was something he had been unknowingly waiting for. Drake felt his heart racing when he heard Liam’s next question.

“Do you want it to?”

“Yeah,” he answered, his voice cracking.

He was not sure who moved forward first. He only knew in the next moment Liam’s hands had fisted around Drake’s shirt and his own seized Liam’s jacket. Drake gasped a little  _Oh_  against Liam’s mouth before sinking against him. 

There was nothing gentle about the kiss. Years’ worth of want finally tasted air. A little noise broke in Drake’s throat. When they parted for breath, neither let go of the other.

“Wow.”

Liam chuckled. “I know.”

“But what does this mean? We couldn’t—” As the initial rush faded, Drake couldn’t ignore the problems staring at them.

He had been wrong: the worst was knowing Liam felt for him as he did, and it wouldn’t be enough.

Liam pressed his lips together.

“I don’t know,” he said, and Drake was grateful for his honesty. “This is all uncharted for me too.” 

His long fingers stroked Drake’s cheek. 

“But I’m willing to take the chance with you.”

When Liam kissed him again, a soft press of mouths that ignited a slow flame through him, Drake let himself believe. His hand found Liam’s; their fingers twined together around the compass.


End file.
